Word: decathloners
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Just a year ago, Daley Thompson mailed a postcard to Bob Mathias, the only man ever to win two decathlon gold medals (in 1948 and 1952). "I'm going to get you," the card said with the jocular pointedness that is Thompson's singular way. Last week, after the two days and ten events that test for the title of world's greatest athlete, Thompson, 26, the cheeky, irrepressible winner of the 1980 decathlon, had made good on his challenge. He did not make it look easy, but he managed to make it look like...
...catch Mathias, chunky 6-ft. 1-in. Thompson had to clamber over statuesque 6-ft. 6¾-in. Jürgen Hingsen, the "German Hercules" who holds the decathlon world record. In style and personality the two duelists are a classic study in contrasts. Thompson the Dionysian, Hingsen the Apollonian; the fiery fullback and the shining knight. Thompson, an infectious extravert from a working-class neighborhood of London who blithely chatters away whether or not anyone is listening, treats the field of play as though it were an enormous sandbox. Hingsen performs without wasted motion or emotion, intently striking...
...Reynolds mustache and his perpetual golden tan. Hingsen predicted he would win the gold. Thompson replied, "There are only two ways he is going to bring a gold medal home; he'll have to steal mine or win another event." Thompson has added an eleventh event to the decathlon: clowning around. He came to one press conference sporting a floppy hat, then doffed it, revealing his head swathed in bandages. "All this talk of Hingsen is giving me a headache," Thompson said in his lilting London accent. In their four international head-to-head contests, though, Thompson had never...
...first event last week, Thompson powered his way to 10.44 sec. in the 100 meters, equaling his best time in a decathlon. In the long jump, roaring down the runway on his third try, he flew 26 ft. 3½ in., 8¼ in. ahead of the West German, and good enough to have placed fifth in the regular competition. The shotput should have been an event in which Hingsen trimmed Thompson's lead. Hingsen heaved his blue shot (color-coordinated with the German uniform) 52 ft. ¾ in. Not bad; better than Thompson's best, though...
...secret lamplighter of Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee President Peter Ueberroth turned out to be two: Gina Hemphill, granddaughter of Jesse Owens, and Rafer Johnson, 1960 decathlon champion. But then all of this summer's 4,200 torchbearers turned out to be remarkable. Winding around and about Southern California these past ten days of the 15,000-km relay, the path traced the same thread that has been tugging at the country since May, a trail of glad tears. George Allen, 62, a football coach of meager perspective who used to say, "Losing is like dying," progressed...